CNN: Exclusive: A crypto-based dossier could help prove Russia committed war crimes. “Starling [Lab]’s dossier isn’t a typical exhibit. Instead, the group’s submission will feature publicly available online information that’s been preserved and verified using the blockchain technology behind cryptocurrencies, in what it says is the first submission of evidence of its kind to any court of law.”
AFP: Tech battles to show worth in Ukraine war crimes probes. “Russia’s war in Ukraine is still being counted in days, but images of atrocities already number in the hundreds of thousands. The conflict is the first to throw up such rich evidence in real time, but the sheer volume of material poses a huge challenge for those trying to use it as evidence of war crimes.”
Bloomberg: Ukraine War’s Most Potent Weapon May Be a Cell Phone. “Winning requires resources devoted to telling the stories from the bloody battlefields to the diplomatic boardrooms. Videos have to be crisp and convincing, showing in graphic detail the war crimes being committed daily in Ukraine. This needs to be packaged and moved over the social networks in creative ways that capitalize on the West’s advantages — from getting them in the hands of social influencers in dozens of key countries to setting up professional-quality websites that are easy to navigate.”
WIRED: The Race to Archive Social Posts That May Prove Russian War Crimes. “IN EARLY APRIL, as Ukraine started to regain control of Bucha and other small towns northwest of Kyiv, appalling imagery began to spread on Telegram and other social networks. Photos and videos showed bodies in the streets and anguished survivors describing loved ones, civilians, killed by Russian soldiers. In Chernivtsi, in western Ukraine, attorney Denys Rabomizo carefully built an archive of the gruesome evidence. His aim: to preserve social media posts that could help prove Russian war crimes.”
Washington Post: How to turn a tweet into viable evidence of a war crime. “…just as we’ve all learned the potential utility of ubiquitous mobile phones in capturing illicit and criminal activity in the United States, it’s useful to remember that the same effects are at play in international conflicts. Capturing and sharing an interesting or alarming video might also be sharing the deployment of an illegal munition.”
AP: How AI-powered Tech Landed Man In Jail With Scant Evidence. “Forensic reports prepared by ShotSpotter’s employees have been used in court to improperly claim that a defendant shot at police, or provide questionable counts of the number of shots allegedly fired by defendants. Judges in a number of cases have thrown out the evidence. ShotSpotter’s proprietary algorithms are the company’s primary selling point, and it frequently touts the technology in marketing materials as virtually foolproof. But the private company guards how its closed system works as a trade secret, a black box largely inscrutable to the public, jurors and police oversight boards.”
Mashable: Jurors could use VR to visit crime scenes, and help them reach a verdict. “In a paper published this May, researchers from the University of South Australia investigated whether the ability to inspect crime scenes in virtual reality could help jurors make decisions in courtroom trials. Measuring the impact of viewing the same crime scene in either VR or a photographic slideshow, they found that virtual reality led participants to a different, more consistent verdict than one based only on photos.”
Motherboard: Police Are Telling ShotSpotter to Alter Evidence From Gunshot-Detecting AI. “Motherboard’s review of court documents from the [Michael] Williams case and other trials in Chicago and New York State, including testimony from ShotSpotter’s favored expert witness, suggests that the company’s analysts frequently modify alerts at the request of police departments—some of which appear to be grasping for evidence that supports their narrative of events.”
AZFamily: Proof of Innocence: New Arizona law opens testing national databases. “For the last 20 years, Arizona inmates have been able to petition the courts to have DNA evidence from their case run through the national database to try and prove their innocence. A new state law passed this week heading for the governor’s desk will expand access to fingerprints, firearms, and all the local and national law enforcement databases detectives use right now to solve cold cases.”
JD Supra: Bot or Not? Authenticating Social Media Evidence at Trial in the Age of Internet Fakery. “Given social media’s pervasiveness in our culture, and the frequency with which people use it compared to other forms of communication, social media evidence is a broader and deeper trove of courtroom evidence than has ever been available before. At the same time, however, social media evidence is uniquely vulnerable to alteration or forgery, particularly as advances in technology allow so-called ‘bot’ accounts to create social media content autonomously.”
Carnegie Mellon University: Machine Learning Tool Helps Human Rights Workers Seek Justice. “Interdisciplinary researchers at CMU created a tool that can scan thousands of hours of multimedia in a matter of minutes. It can help human rights practitioners build cases against war criminals.”
Phys .org: Here’s what police know about digital evidence. “In today’s criminal justice system, a Play Station and iPhone are just as important pieces of evidence as eyewitness accounts. Yet, there isn’t a strong understanding as to how police officers identify digital evidence—everything from a laptop to a smart television—in the field.”
BBC: Florida cops hope Alexa can solve bizarre spear murder case. “Florida police investigating the bizarre death of a woman during a domestic row have obtained audio from two Amazon Echo devices. Silvia Galva, 32, was impaled by a spear-tipped bed post in a struggle with her boyfriend, Adam Reechard Crespo, at their Hallandale Beach home.”
Lexology: Time travel in the Federal Court of Australia – WayBack Machine print-outs admissible* as evidence. “On this basis, there would now seem to be some prospect of getting print-outs of web pages obtained via the WayBack Machine into evidence where: (a) the web pages belong to or are otherwise controlled by a party to the proceedings; and (b) discovery has been sought from that other party and not yielded the content of the web pages.”
